“Captain on the bridge!”

The bridge crew stood, formally, and Commander Dal waited a moment before stepping through the portal to the bridge. He turned to each crewmember in turn, locking eyes with them for a moment and then spoke. “At ease. Condition blue, prepare for launch.”

The crew acknowledged and went back to their stations as a cool blue light washed over the viewscreen.

Jason lingered back in the turbolift, enjoying a moment to privately sneer at the archaic military formalities. He never liked that pomp and circumstance. He was here to explore, to research, to make avant-garde scientific discoveries and build relationships with his crewmates. He adamantly did not sign up for military duty and disliked anything that brought military formality into service.

But he was experienced enough not to share it with the junior officers on the bridge. After lingering a few seconds, he walked onto the bridge with a light smile for the crew he knew well, and an overall sober expression.

He focused on the launch, as the Calistoga cleared the external docking pylons of Starbase 339 and made a languid exit circle around the Jupiter-class station. He always liked launches, enjoying the picturesque views of the starbase, picking a direction and heading out to new and uncharted spaces.

Except they were going to a not-new, already-charted, and not-friendly destination.

“Helm, set a course to Spaceport Mireya 7, best possible speed.” Commander Dal spoke in soft, firm tones.

“That would be Warp 3, Sir.” Molan, the helm officer replied.

Dal tipped his antennae forward in a nod without moving his head. “Warp 3 it is.”

Jason forced himself to look back at his console, if only to hide the fact that he was staring at Commander Dal like a research scientist stares at the new insect he just discovered. He had known the man for less than four hours and he already had a new life goal: make this man crack.

He didn’t even care if it was positive or negative. If he screamed, cried, laughed out loud or even looked shocked. Anything but that stoic expression highlighted only by the movements of his antennae. Jason couldn’t read the man, and the antennae movement quite frankly made him nervous.

Dal wasn’t the first Andorian he had served with, but none of the others had such a controlled façade. Then again none of the others had that soft almost lisping speech style either, and the scientist in Jason wondered how much of that was a personal thing verses a regional thing. He didn’t know Andor well enough to tell different races of Andorians apart.

“We should be within hailing distance of Mireya 7 in four hours, any blackouts or hazards notwithstanding.” Jason offered his information mildly, without drama and keeping his hands on his station.

It wasn’t lost on the scientist that the blackouts were localized in major commerce, trade, travel and power centers. Mireya 7 was none of these. A fiercely independent space station, it was too close to Federation space to be a major black market or Syndicate center and too far away from Ferengi space to draw major mercantile attention. It was just big enough to be self-sufficient and steadily grow from a speck on the map to a slightly bigger dot on the map.

Dwasina entered the bridge and after a short conversation she absconded with Commander Dal to the ready room. The rest of the bridge was quiet, each of the junior officers tending their job as per normal, and Jason suddenly wondered if he was the only person here who felt that this was wrong. That Commander Dal was not a good fit for the Calistoga and the circumstances surrounding Captain Jemison’s retirement seemed suspicious.

And yet there was everyone else acting so… normal.

Could he be the one who was wrong? Or was he the only one who could see the truth?

He bit his teeth together, chewing on his inner cheek to keep himself from spouting conspiracy theories on the bridge. And he got extremely invested in the stellar cartography readings in Mireya 7, to the point where he could map the station’s position relative to the nearby asteroid field based on which asteroid was in proximity.

And still the conversation took far too long. Commander Dal exited looking just as stoic and unreadable as when he entered. Dwasina looked… rattled. Jason frowned.

“I’m going to head to security and get my entourage settled for the away team.” Commander Roix announced, mostly towards Commander Dal, but loud enough that the bridge could overhear.

“Go well, Commander.” The Andorian offered before settling back into the center chair.

Jason sprang up from his seat. “I’m coming with you!”

And for a moment Dwasina stared at him, her eyes wide as if she was afraid. Jason clenched his teeth together, his expression molding downwards into a frown. He had known Dwasina for years, she didn’t act like that. “I need to check on stellar cartography, to ensure we can map any subspace interference or blackout zones.”

Commander Dal didn’t protest, and Dwasina didn’t do anything to stop him so Jason piled into the turbolift after her.

Like a gentleman he waited until the doors were closed before he started speaking. “What’s got you so rattled?”

“Nothing.” She replied, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning against the back wall.

Jason rarely saw Dwasina block herself off like that, usually it was only when she was trying to block out a large amount of emotional feedback. Currently the whole crew was dealing with a new CO and going out on a potentially dangerous mission. This had to be the most emotional charge felt around the Calistoga in a long time.

And yet…

“I don’t think it’s nothing. You’re not acting like yourself.” He took the spot on the opposite side of the lift.

“I had some concerns about the mission. I wanted to talk them out with the Commander.” She shrugged.

“And…?”

“And I think they’re resolved.” She returned evenly. “That’s why I’m gathering a security detail to join me.”

Jason eyed her. He remembered the part of the briefing where they had already discussed a security detail accompanying the away team. It was never finalized but that hardly seemed like a critical discussion point. He wondered if she even wanted to be on this away team.

“Do you feel secure with your detail?”

“I trust Lieutenant Haynes and her officers.” Dwasina eyed him back, wondering what his angle was.

“Why doesn’t Commander Dal beam down with a diplomatic attaché instead?’ Jason offered a flip of the teams, perhaps as a thought experiment, perhaps as an ask.

Dwasina’s response was curt and a bit snippy. “That’s not proper protocol and you know it.”

He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Protocol doesn’t understand our crew and its specific situation. You should be on the bridge.”

She sighed and shook her head slowly at him, and he wondered if she was going to hold his morning outburst up as a reason why protocol should be followed. He never even considered she might be thinking that due to his outbursts maybe she should be on the bridge- or he should not be on the bridge. But all she actually said was “why?”

Jason leaned forward, offering his most charming and cajoling tone. “You’re the one who knows the crew. You’re the one who could step in if anything happens.”

“And you’re the second officer.” She resisted the urge to stab a finger at him. “It’s your job to know the crew and be the liaison between the Captain and the rest of the crew.”

He leaned back against the wall as if bitten and he frowned at her. “Ouch.” Shaking his head he decided to drop the bridge argument, and he clenched his teeth again as the turbolift slowed nearing their destination. “You are really out of sorts today, Dwasina, you know that?

He was too busy focusing on walking out of the turbolift and heading to stellar cartography to catch the pain and frustration that ghosted across the first officer’s face.

~*~

Stellar cartography was never the most exciting place on the ship, but with the holomaps projects across the room, and the intense arrays of scanning equipment Jason always found it intriguing.

Ensign Fitt, who had sent him the original data on the area around Mireya 7, immediately waved him over. “Sir!  I’m glad you came down, I need you to take a look at this!”

Jason headed over to a large shining map, with Ensign Fitt adjusting the view to clearly show the patchwork architecture of Mireya 7. Built from the old K-7 base, it was filled with parts bought from old Klingon stock, and a couple of Romulan elements that were likely recent additions from the post-Hobus era.

But what was interesting about it was the partial solar system the space station was positioned in. None of the planets were inhabitable, and at least two of the middle planets had collided creating a massive asteroid belt. The station rested outside of that, but close enough to mine valuable minerals from the system when needed.

“Sir, here’s our map from the past pass through the area, which was 87 days ago, and here’s the new scans.” Fitt swapped the overlays, so Jason could clearly see what had changed.

Ibanez took the entire map in, and he traced his finger along the route until it pointed to a place Fitt had highlighted, “What’s this?”

“That’s a missing asteroid.” Fitt flipped between the two scans, one showing a large asteroid in a fairly stable orbit, the next showing the same field, with a distinct lack of a large asteroid.

Rocking on his feet Jason leaned forward. “Could it have moved? Been mined? Destroyed?”

“Possibly.” The ensign nodded, “But unlikely. An asteroid of that size, even if it had an unstable orbit we should have been able to locate it within the field. But with its mass, we calculate it has a stable orbit. And with its mass mining would be more effective if they built a temporary structure on it and extracted the minerals, rather than trying to destroy it.”

Hmm. A missing asteroid was never good, but there was something else that caught Jason’s eyes. “What’s this?” he indicated a hazy black spot that only showed up on the most recent scan.

“Unsure, Sir.  Some sort of subspace interference, we can’t get clear readings.”

Jason frowned, stroking his beard to try to hide the expression. That sounded unpleasantly like an area of blackout. It was far enough away from their flight path that it shouldn’t affect the Calistoga, but the tip of the area was encroaching suspiciously close to Mireya 7. “I don’t like it.”

“I don’t either.” Fitt agreed.

Jason held his breath for a moment before letting out a long, slow sigh and standing to tap his commbadge. “Ibanez to bridge.”

“This is Commander Dal, go ahead Commander Ibanez.”

Jason bristled at that overly calm soft tone.  There was something about it that bothered him. Maybe it was merely that it didn’t fit with what his brain pictured a hazard team, military trained officer to sound like.

Then again, he also expected Dal to be tall and rippling with muscles that were packed into a uniform tunic two sized too small, and was rather disappointed when he saw the man was of an average height and a fairly average build. Altogether he seemed too calm, too confident and too unassuming for comfort. There was something wrong with him and Jason couldn’t put his finger on what. None of this jived with the experiences Jason had with hazard team officers previously.

He shook his head, there was a mission to attend to and he had to focus.

“Bridge, stellar cartography has identified two spatial disturbances around Mireya 7. One is a missing asteroid, and one is a subspace interference that suspiciously resembles an area if blackout.”

“Could it be the Vaadwaur?” Dal asked lightly.

“Possibly.” Jason took one more look at the maps. “Or the pirates are doing something untoward. Either way we need to be extremely careful.”

“Understood Commander. Return to the bridge when you’re able.”

Jason turned towards Fitt. “Thank you, Ensign, please compile this data in a report and send it to me. I need to go find a friend…”

“Of course, Sir.”

Fitt nodded and got back to work while Jason clenched his fists together. He figured that Dwasina was in no mood to talk to him, but he felt like he had to tell her this. If only to keep her safe.